Hello, and thank you for taking the time to look over my guide! I am always looking for feedback.
NOTE: *ES = Energy Shield*

::Index::
1. character introduction & advantages
2. gear
3. skills
4. stats
5*. i may add battle strategies vs. most basic/common enemy characters if i get around to it later

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1. Character Introduction & Advantages
This is a sorc build based on having practically unnavoidable damage and being able to soak up almost any attacks the enemy throws at you, without being BM and using sorb gear (but should you choose to sorb, ES + 2x sorb rings will be plenty to annihalate another sorc or elemental damage caster). The 95% es is of course the max, and you dont waste a single extra skill point getting it! It has the second fastest casting rate, around 1.4k orb damage (with high end but imperfect gear) and second fastest hit recovery!

Status Objective:
105%+ fcr
86%+ fhr
95% sorb on ES

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2. Gear
*Before i list the gear, one thing must be VERY apparent in your mind; es counts BEFORE resists, so even if you sacrifice skill charms for resist ones to get the max 75% resists, you are taking 75% away from 5% of the original damage (0.037% of the original damage). In essence, resist is worthless to you, so dont worry about it.

=Helm: Nightwings (preferably 20/-5, dex & sorb wont matter)
=Armor: ES Ormus (preferably 20/-5)
=Shield: Spirit Monarch (go for high mana, fcr wont matter)
=Weapon: Fathom (35/-5 preferable,but thats out of a lot of peoples price range; resists wont matter)
=Belt: Arach
=Glove: Magefist (upped works just for kicks, but any will do because defense dont mean squat)
=Boots: Whatever duped rare you feel comfortable with (str takes precedence over all stats). **Silkweaves work for mana boost too**
=Amulet: Whatever duped rare you feel comfortable with (+2 sorc skills at least, str is a big bonus. DOES NOT NEED FCR) **Maras works too**
=Ring1: Soj
=Ring2: Soj

=Charm Sets= (based on price; please note that all "plain" cold charms are to be replaced with lifers as per your price range)
NOTE: *All Charm sets include a torch & anni*
Charm Set 1 (most expensive): 3x fhr cold gcs, 5x plain cold gcs, 10x life/mana scs
Charm Set 2 (moderately priced): 2x fhr cold gcs. 6 plain cold gcs, 2x mana/fhr scs, 8x life/mana scs
Charm Set 3 (cheap charms): 9x plain cold gcs, 7x mana/fhr scs, 3x life/mana scs
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3. Skill Placement
NOTE: all skills are listed as your character would be completely naked & with no charms

Fire skills:
+1 warmth

Lightning skills:
+1 Prerequisites (charged bolt, lightninh, & chain lightning)
+1 teleport
+15 telekinesis (this is needed for a 1:1 damage ratio against your mana)
+20 energy shield

Cold Skills:
+1 Prerequisites (frost nova, ice blast, galacial spike, blizzard)
+20 Ice Bolt
+20 Frozen Orb
+20 Ice Mastery

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5. Stats:

Str: varies based on gear, but must reach 156 for spirit monarch. use as little as possible
Dex: dont waste a single point here
Vit: make sure you have around 100 vit, because this gives you the chance to escape should poison or open wounds afflict you
Energy: every point not used in str or vit goes HERE. YOU NEED MASS MANA TO POWER ES

This post was edited by TheForgottenOnes on Aug 2 2006 12:47am

post in guide section?

2 Things:

1. Frosties are a much better choice than Magefists (40% more mana)
2. Its lvl 16 for a 1 to 1 ratio but if you are going that far, its worth the 4 extra points for the .75: 1 ratio (like getting 25% extra life)

Other than that, no complaints

This post was edited by MrShowtime on Aug 2 2006 06:02am

I don't like how you want to use ormus. Plus, you what skill do you want on it because it can't have orb.

you need the magefists for the objective FCR bp (86%) if you are using maras. if you are using something similar to a fletch (+2 sorc w/ 20% fcr) then you can of course use frosties instead, but i was writing this quide to be as widely useable as possible, because i dont know the dupes of any realms other than USEast.

im sorry, but the table i was attempting to post on the es/tk returns bonus seemed to become tangled in translation. please checkwww.pvpwest.com and look under the sorceress stat tables. it lists 50:50 damage ratio at level 15



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you want ormus for the fcr & +3 ES (needed to get the 95% es sorb, unless you are using a 9 es memoryf for prebuff or are using a +4 es cta staff). personally, i prefer the idea of using a plain and common cta with a spirit for more life/mana and i really despise the idea of prebuff due to the length it adds in beetween duels.
im also experimenting with using fletch + btals and replacing 1x cold gc with a light for max es sorb, but it really lowers the damage dramatically. you have to remember that as opposed to light & fire, cold mastery decreases enemy resists, so +xx% cold damage is always more important than skills to your attacks. +20% cold damage is quite a bit more powerful than +2 skills on your orb damage. and also, again, ormus has the fcr you will be interested in if you dont want to use a duped amulet such as fletch.

This post was edited by TheForgottenOnes on Aug 2 2006 03:00pm

interesting... pretty simple and nothing special but a good job for the basics

it didnt need to be anything special, i was just hoping to put a es/orb sorc guide on this forum. all the listed ones either have no es skills on them or are so outdated that they make much less sense (meaning things like using lidless instead of spirit, no torch, other things like that)

not bad

thank you, and i have a note i just need to add.

NOTE: this build is completable skill wise at level 92. should you feel the need to level further, your skills should go into telekinesis (tk). this will even more decrease the damage to mana ratio, making the full build with max tk available at level 97. from there, you have 2 choices; you can add more to teleport (tele) for making the mana cost even lower, but chances are you will have enough mana and skills added to make any more tele skills completely negligible. with the skill added to warmth and all the skill bonuses added to it, you should actually GAIN mana as you tele. this means that you should use your skill points in a cold shield skill.

EDIT NOTE #2: you can also use the last skill points into warmth for even faster regeneration of your mana

This post was edited by TheForgottenOnes on Aug 2 2006 03:23pm

Good guide